


Storm Warning

by Burning_Nightingale



Category: Tanis (Podcast)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 08:39:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8884234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Nightingale/pseuds/Burning_Nightingale
Summary: After Nic's second brush with Tanis, moving on is harder than he ever thought it would be.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redbrickrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbrickrose/gifts).



> I had real fun with this, hope you enjoy it! Happy Yuletide!

 “I think it’s time for a rather depressing edition of the Tanis State of the Union,” I said.

“Everyone’s missing, no one’s talking, all our leads are dead,” MK said immediately.

The worst part was, that wasn’t all that far from the truth.

“ _We’re_ still not missing,” Alex said, though it sounded more like gallows humour than hope.

“Also Nic’s leg is busted. Did I mention that? That’s a thing.”

“It’s not so bad,” I protested. “It’s been two weeks-”

“And you’re not going anywhere near Ellis again until you can run away,” Alex said firmly. She glanced at MK’s image on the screen. “Just thought I’d head that one off at the pass.”

MK nodded. “Right. So, that leaves you on research duty. Co-research duty, I guess. You find anything on that lead I gave you, Sherlock?”

I sighed. They were right, of course, but after two weeks, being all but confined to bedrest was starting to take its toll. “Nothing much beyond what we discussed. Jörmungandr the world serpent, some kind of eldritch beast from Scandinavian legend, kind of Cthulhu-like if you squint. Supposed to rise from the ocean and poison the air during Ragnarok, the end of the world in Norse mythology. Also an example of Ouroboros, the unending circle.”

“So, related to the creature in the culvert?” Alex asked. Somehow she managed to make it sound like a genuine question.

“Possibly. Depends whether there’s any other Tanis evidence in Scandinavia. If Tanis really moves every four hundred years, there’s a lot of periods when we have no idea where it was. Anywhere in the world is possible.”

“And Scandinavia’s got a lot of wilderness. And legends,” MK added.

“So we’re looking for previous Tanis locations now?” Alex asked.

“Could be something. More information, things about Tanis other cultures observed that we haven’t heard yet.”

“Also it’s about the only lead we got,” MK said sourly.

Alex winced. “Sorry, Nic. I know this is tough.”

I nodded. “It’s an investigation. It’s not like I wasn’t prepared to hit a wall.”

“Yep,” MK agreed, making the ‘p’ pop loudly. “I’m gonna keep digging, and watching. If I find anything I’ll call you.”

“Thanks,” I said, and a familiar Skype noise indicated she’d disconnected. I blew out a long breath and leant forward, wiping a hand over my tired face. “So. Things going better with the Black Tapes?”

Now it was Alex’s turn to sigh heavily. “No. Yes. Who the hell knows. I’m hitting walls all over the place, too.” She smiled a little. “At least Strand isn’t the biggest anymore.”

“Trust me, the lack of you two arguing is the one bright spot in all of this.” I shifted my injured ankle a little, trying to make it more comfortable. “When’s he coming back, anyhow?”

“Soon, I think. Who knows at this point? He seems…” She paused, searching for a word. “Distant? I suppose that’s the best way to describe it.”

“Strand? Distant? Stop the presses, Pacific North West finally has a story.”

She shook her head at me. “Cheeky.” She stood. “Come on, hop-along. It’s getting late.”

“I suppose giving me lifts home _does_ make sure you don’t stay here all night,” I said as she gave me a hand up and onto my crutches.

“As if you haven’t spent the night here more than me,” she snorted.

“Yeah, mostly producing your show.”

We got down to her car, successfully navigating the treacherously steep studio stairs, and listened to the radio play Bruce Springsteen on the way home.

“It’ll be Christmas songs soon,” Alex said, tapping a finger on the wheel to the beat.

“In September?” She laughed at the incredulous note in my voice. “At least this’ll probably have healed up before the worst of the snow,” I said, shifting my leg again.

I hadn’t moved back into my house. It seemed prudent, while partially incapacitated, to be as cautious as possible, and several people – perhaps most dangerously, Cameron Ellis – knew where I lived. Alex drove me out into the dark countryside, made sure I got inside without incident, then left me alone.

It was still kind of strange, being out here all by myself. I was so used to having neighbours, used to having my home be part of an apartment building or on a street. Out here, it was just me.

And Lucy, of course. She came snuffling around my feet, sniffing, probably checking I hadn’t done myself any more damage while I’d been out. “Nothing exciting today, Luce,” I told her. She wuffed quietly at me, then sat by my feet as I ate dinner in front of the TV.

Two hours at my desk produced nothing from my computer, as I’d expected. I turned it off and went upstairs, tucked myself into bed and opened the Prose Edda.

Even if it didn’t turn out to be relevant to Tanis, it was still a good story.

/

A long, slow week later, I got a phone call.

“Nic? It’s Emily.” She sounded tense. “Nic. He came back.”

Emily Matthews was a recent acquaintance. I’d met her about three weeks earlier when I’d visited Geoff’s house with Alex, looking for him. Emily was Geoff’s new tenant. She hadn’t seen him, but I gave her my number just in case. A few days after my visit, Emily and I had agreed to approach the police together, but they’d uncovered nothing.

Until now.

I gripped the phone so hard it hurt. “Geoff? He’s back?”

“Yeah.” Emily sounded breathless. “Turned up on the doorstep this morning, asking if I had his keys.”

“Is he okay?”

“I _think_ so.” She sounded doubtful. “He’s not hurt. Just a little…out of it. Doesn’t remember where he’s been all this time, because of course that would be far too convenient.”

“Wouldn’t it.” I blew out a breath. “Okay, Emily, I’m gonna- I have to- I mean, can I come over?”

“It’d be good if you could,” she said. “Might make him feel better.”

“I’ll call my ride. It might take a while, like an hour and a half?”

“We can wait,” she said grimly.

/

Alex drove us over so fast we got there a little over an hour later. Emily answered the door of the main house. “Come in,” she said, leading us into the kitchen.

Geoff was sitting at the breakfast bar with a young man I didn’t know, a mug of coffee in his hands. He didn’t look too much the worse for wear; tired, maybe even bordering on haggard, exhaustion flowing off of him in waves. But his hair had been washed, and he was clean-shaven. He jumped up when he heard me clatter into the room. “Nic! What the hell happened?”

“Running around the woods in the dark finally caught up to me,” I said, wry. It was hard to process anything other than the fact that he was here, alive and well, in front of me.

“Jesus.” Geoff came over, and unexpectedly wrapped me up in a hug. “You’re crazy,” he muttered, close to my ear.

I hugged him back, awkwardness forgotten in the relief of seeing him again. He was very warm, and he smelled faintly of shampoo, like he’d just come out of the shower.

He pulled back and grabbed my arm, guiding me over to one of the stools. “Grab a bench, man, rest up. This is Oliver, by the way.”

The young man held out a hand. “Oliver Penton. I’m Emily’s boyfriend.”

“Nice to meet you.” I shook his hand.

“It’s Alex, right?” I heard Geoff say behind me. “I think we met…?”

“With the search parties,” Alex confirmed. Emily moved round into the kitchen to fill the kettle, and Alex sat down next to me on the last empty stool.

Geoff leant on the kitchen counter opposite, elbows on the hard, black granite. “So,” he said.

“Yeah. So, what’s going on?” I asked.

We all waited for Geoff to answer. He sighed heavily; for a moment, the only sound was the kettle bubbling. “I don’t know, man. Last thing I remember, I’m walking up my drive this morning. When I got to the door I realized I wasn’t wearing my coat, so I didn’t have my key. Then I went and knocked on the basement door.”

“What were you wearing?” I asked.

Geoff frowned. “Grey tracksuit. Not branded. Also not mine, last I checked.”

“You were in different clothes then you left in?”

“Yeah. Before, I was wearing jeans, my coat, my hiking boots. When I…woke up, I guess, this morning, I was wearing a grey tracksuit and white sneakers.”

“Were you on the ground when you woke up? Or already standing?” Alex asked.

“Standing. I was walking, actually. Like I’d just turned off the road, onto the drive.” Geoff shook his head. “Man, this is fuckin’ weird.”

“Yeah,” Oliver agreed, “Like, FBI abduction weird.”

“Or aliens,” Emily said, sounding a lot more sceptical.

“It’s Tanis shit, I’m guessing?” Geoff asked, looking at me. To my relief, he didn’t sound accusing.

“I don’t know. You left me a message saying you’d meet me in the woods, but when I went there I couldn’t find you.”

“Yeah, I remember walking up to the plane,” Geoff said. “After that everything’s just…black.” He shook his head again; he looked like a dog trying to rid its coat of water. “I remember walking through the trees, catching sight of the plane, then…nothing. It’s like the tape goes black, then cuts back in this morning on the drive.”

We were all quiet for a moment, digesting this. Emily handed round the mugs of coffee she’d been making. Then I said, “Thing is, I didn’t leave you that message.”

Geoff looked up at me, a frown furrowing his brow. “But…dude, I know what you sound like. That was you, I’d swear it.”

“Don’t suppose you’ve still got the message?” I asked.

“Phone was in my coat pocket, so it’s gone the same way as my keys,” Geoff said, obviously annoyed.

“You’d think shady government agencies could at least leave you your phone,” Oliver said.

“Right? That was a new iPhone,” Geoff grumbled.

It was somehow so _Geoff_ to be worried about a lost phone, when he’d been abducted for three weeks by persons unknown. That, more than anything, convinced me he was okay. “Are you sure you’re alright?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “I feel okay. Tired, I guess.”

I glanced over at Alex. She was looking at Geoff, a thoughtful frown on her face. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

“Well, thank god you’re alright,” Emily said into the silence.

 _Thank god_ , I agreed silently.

Hoping that we wouldn’t be proved wrong.

/

The weeks moved on, though Tanis didn’t seem to. I actually got a call from Cameron Ellis, though nothing much came of it; telling him I’d been injured seemed to make him back off. “Perhaps you can come back to work when you’re better,” he’d said, then ended the call pretty quick.

MK still wasn’t having much luck picking anything up. “This happen often in your…you call them cases? Investigations?”

“We call them whatever,” I said. “And yeah, usually it does. Sometimes you hit a wall you can’t get past, and that’s it, y’know?”

MK snorted. “I don’t tend to hit walls I can’t get round, Nic.”

Geoff continued to act like his normal self, which was reassuring. “Almost lost my job though,” he told me over beers. “Had a hell of a time explaining to them why I just up and vanished for three weeks. They wanted to make me go see a psychiatrist, make sure I wasn’t having a mental breakdown or whatever.”

I swirled the deep brown liquid in my bottle. “Maybe you should do hypnotherapy,” I told him. “You heard some of the weird stuff I came out with. Maybe if you went under, you’d remember where you went those three weeks.”

Geoff leant back in his chair, eyes tipped up to the horizon, as if he were thinking hard about it. “I dunno, man. Maybe. I guess anything that helps, right?”

“You don’t have to. Just, if it’s bothering you.”

Geoff raised an eyebrow. “‘If’?”

I grinned awkwardly. “Yeah. Sorry, stupid thing to say. You just seem so…together. Like, unflappable. But I guess disappearing for three weeks would bother anyone.”

“I mean, it’s not like I can’t do everything just like normal, right? I can still get through the day. Just, sometimes I stop and think, like, I _disappeared_. For three fuckin’ weeks, and I don’t _remember_ it.” Geoff shook his head; again, I was reminded of a dog, perhaps one trying to shake off a wasp. “It’s just so weird, man. So fuckin’ creepy. I don’t even know how to feel about it.”

Alex came in and out, busy with things for the Black Tapes. She didn’t say much, but I had a feeling she was onto something.

About a month later, just after I’d turned out the light, an idea hit me like a lightning bolt. I sat up so fast my head started spinning.

 _Alice Geller_. I couldn’t understand why, during all the time I’d been racking my brains trying to think of another lead, I hadn’t thought of her.

I called MK the next morning. “I thought of something last night,” I explained. “When I was running through the woods, I found myself at Pacifica Station again. And there was a woman there, one of TeslaNova’s employees I guess. Said her name was Alice Geller.”

MK pursed her lips. “That’s it?”

“Just about. All my memories of that night are so blurry, I guess I didn’t remember until now. But maybe she has something to do with, I don’t know, something.”

“And you don’t think maybe it’s just a conincidence she was out there at the same time you were running around in the dark?”

“Maybe.” I shrugged. “But it’s a name we can look for. If anything, she’s in with TeslaNova. She might know something about what they’re doing there.”

“If you can convince her to talk around the NDA I’m pretty certain is in every TeslaNova employee contract,” MK said.

“Yeah, if. There’s a lot of ifs here. But it’s a start, right?”

“It’s a start,” MK agreed. “Okay, I’ll look for this Geller. If I find anything, you’ll be the first I tell.”

/

It was the night I mentioned Alice Geller to Geoff that everything changed.

“Okay, so let me see if I have this straight.” Geoff was leaning on the bar, beer casually in hand. He hadn’t taken a sip for about fifteen minutes now; I’d only noticed because it was so unusual for him. Had he been drinking less since his return? “You go up into the woods with Veronica and meet Nathaniel,” he continued, pulling me out of my thoughts. “You hike up to some clearing with an altar at one end.”

“It looked like an altar to me, but it might have been something entirely different,” I said.

“Okay, but it was _probably_ an altar. Then those shadow beasts things come in and toss Carter around like a ragdoll.” I nodded. “You book it – probably the most sensible thing you did all night – and wander around in the woods, find the cabin again, see some giant monster in a culvert, dream about Sam and Morgan…Am I getting all this?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I followed the map to the cabin. And the obelisk.”

“And then you snapped your ankle, wandered around a little more, and ran into Cult of Tanis Paul, who took you back to their trailer park, right?”

“Right. He said he needed to show me something.”

Geoff tipped his head inquiringly. “And that was?”

“A list of names. People who they’d found were previous Runners.” I blew out a breath. “I don’t know, Paul was talking a lot about the Navigator, how only they can find the path to the true heart of Tanis. It sounded like a lot of Cult bullshit, if I’m honest. I was in so much pain from the ankle that I didn’t really hear half of what he told me. Then their doctor insisted they take me to the hospital, so that cut that visit short.”

Geoff frowned down at the dark wood of the bar top. “Can’t say I’m too disappointed in that outcome.”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I think maybe the Cult knows something important, and sometimes I think they’re a bunch of delusional hippies. I really wish I could remember more of what Paul told me.”

“So you haven’t met up with him since? To go over that stuff?”

“I don’t exactly have his number.”

Geoff raised an eyebrow. “He didn’t give you his card?”

I laughed a little. “Don’t think that’s exactly his style.”

We were quiet for a few minutes, just sipping beer and letting the low music wash over us. It was nice for me to finally go over some of this stuff, to think analytically about it again. And it was nice to hang out with Geoff again – to just talk, even if it was fairly heavy Tanis stuff. It was nice to know he was still around – that whatever the hell was happening with Tanis, and whatever had happened to him, it hadn’t scared him off.

“So that’s the full story.” Geoff leant back slightly and looked me over. “I can’t decide if it’s more or less exciting than your other woods adventure.”

“Both were pretty…hairy,” I said, smiling a little. I couldn’t decide whether joking about it made me feel better or worse.

“You sure you remember everything this time?”

“Mostly. Oh, there was one thing I only thought of a few days ago, something I wanted MK to check out.”

“Uh oh.” Geoff raised his hand to order another beer. “This sounds like a _lead_.”

“Well, maybe a small one.” I cleared my throat. “So, as I’m wandering around in the woods, as you like to put it, I find myself back by Pacifica Station. And there’s this woman there, whom I assume works for TeslaNova, says her name is Alice Geller. I don’t know, I’m thinking, maybe she’s important? Could at least be an in, if we could get her to talk.”

Geoff had gone suddenly still, his face fixed in an expression of surprise. “You’re sure the name was Alice Geller?” he asked.

Geoff knew something; I could tell, just from the look in his eyes. “Yeah, that was her name. My memory’s a little hazy but I _definitely_ remember that name.”

Geoff blinked a few times. “It’s just…I knew someone called Alice Geller. She was in my unit, but after she got out she went on to do science. I still hear from her sometimes.”

“Really?” For a moment couldn’t help thinking this was too good to be true; but I pushed it aside. It was a small world, and full of odd conincidences. “You don’t think it could be the same woman?”

Geoff frowned. “What did she look like?”

“Er…Quite tall, mid-thirties, black, hair in cornrows.” I shook my head. “It was dark, I couldn’t see her that well.”

“Sounds enough like her.” Geoff was looking at the rack of spirit bottles behind the bar, but I got the feeling he wasn’t really seeing it. “I suppose it _could_ be Alice. I don’t know what field she went into; she was always very vague about what she was doing. Kinda suspicious, now that I think about it.”

“She never talked about her work?” I asked.

“We didn’t really see each other that often. Just went out for drinks a few times when our paths crossed; she came up here for conferences, and once we were in New York at the same time. She always said her work was interesting, that she was happy doing what she loved…” Geoff furrowed his brow. “But no, don’t remember that she ever explicitly explained what she was doing. It never really bothered me; guess I always thought she figured it would be too complicated to explain.”

We were quiet for a moment before I ventured the question, “Do you still have her number?”

Geoff started a little as if I’d startled him out of deep thought. “Oh, sure, probably.” He pulled his phone – newly acquired, though not without a great amount of grumbling – and thumbed through his contact list. “Not in here, but I haven’t transferred all my numbers into this phone yet. It’s probably written down at home.”

“Do you mind calling her?” I asked.

“No way man. If it gets us closer to this mystery, I’m up for it.” Geoff grinned. “Kinda invested now, right?”

I paused, unsure what to say. “You know, I never really said- I mean, I never really apologized-”

“For what? You didn’t kidnap me, dude.” Geoff narrowed his eyes, affecting an expression of mock suspicion. “Unless it _was_ you. Is that what you’re confessing, Mr Silver?”

I shook my head, laughing. “ _No_ , that’s not what I’m ‘confessing’. What I’m saying is, I’m sorry for dragging you into this.”

Geoff shrugged. “I had a lot of chances to get out. Could’ve said no to any of those times you asked me to run security detail.”

“Sure, but-”

“But nothing.” Geoff looked serious now. “I got into this, Nic. And if they’re gonna fuck with me, they’re gonna regret it.”

A tingle of something – I couldn’t quite name it, and wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to – raced down my spine. “Okay,” I said quietly. “That’s…well, that reassures me. Somewhat.”

Geoff grinned suddenly, and winked. “If you’re not freaking out, we’re good.”

“So, you’ll call Alice?”

“Sure.” Geoff knocked back the rest of his beer. “I’ll call her tonight, soon as I get home.” He looked at me questioningly. “Another beer?”

“Sure, what the hell.”

/

Geoff called back a couple of days later. “She was pretty surprised to hear from me, I think,” he said. “I played it cool, y’know, asked how she was and how things were going. Let _her_ bring up that she was in the area, actually. Real sneaky reporter style.” I laughed, imagining the grin he’d have on his face as he said it. “She wants to meet up for a drink next weekend. I reckon I’ll go, try and ask her about work, see if she’s cagey or whatever. Maybe mention the podcast stuff?”

“See how she reacts to the work questions, I guess.” I twirled my pen through my fingers, thinking about how best to approach the questioning – especially when I wasn’t going to be the one doing it. “Y’know what? Mention the podcast. It’s the kind of thing you’d talk about if you were going to be meeting her without any kind of agenda, right?”

“Er, yeah, think I’d mention it.” Geoff laughed. “Still don’t know whether to break out the ‘missing for three weeks and amensia’ story, though.”

“Maybe. See how it goes.” I sighed and leant back in my chair. “First rule of interviews; everything depends on how the interviwee responds. You shape what you ask around them.”

“Okay, I’ll keep that in mind.” We exchanged a few more words, and then Geoff rang off.

I’d told MK about Geoff’s acquaintance with Alice Geller; I couldn’t tell what she thought about it. She was, as usual, hard to read.

She called later in the day with an update. “I’ve found some records about Geller. Fits with what Geoff told you; army paid her way through college, she did her required years, and then she became a scientist full time. Moved around a lot, through a lot of different projects.” MK clicked a few times, bringing other things up on her screen, her eyes flitting from one to the other. “She’s a biologist with a specialisation in plants, specifically plant mutations. Her research sounds like something that might relate to Tanis. _And_ , you’ll be pleased to hear, there’s a TeslaNova connection.”

“Awesome. What is it?”

“The company she was working for back in ’09 was involved in a joint research project with TeslaNova. Apparently they made a big breakthrough, something to do with how radiation affects plant growth. Some of the articles I found suggested she worked closely with the scientists from TeslaNova; could be how she got her current job.”

“ _If_ it’s the same Alice Geller, and if she works for them,” I said.

“I’ll send you a picture,” MK said, grinning slightly. A few clicks, and then MK asked, “This her?”

I minimized Skype and opened my email client. A second later I found the email from MK; it contained nothing but a photo, a simple full body shot that looked like it had been taken from a newspaper report. “That’s her,” I said, opening the Skype window again.

“Looks like we finally have something.” The sound of more clicking, then MK continued, “I haven’t found out for sure where she works right now, whether it’s TeslaNova or someplace else.”

“She hasn’t updated her LinkedIn profile in a while?” I asked, grinning.

“Yeah, ha ha. People who move in the circles we’re talking about don’t really do shit like that.”

“It’d be too convienent if they updated their public profiles each time they got hired at a new secret project.”

That actually made her grin. “When I find the shadow LinkedIn for evil corporations and mad scientists, I’ll call you.” She leant back from the camera. “For now, though, that’s all I got. What about you?”

“Nothing much.” I told her about my earlier phone call with Geoff. “I guess we’ll see what that comes up with.” I chewed my lip, suddenly a little nervous. “I think I can trust him not to screw this up. I _owe_ him that much trust.”

MK shrugged. “Not about what you owe him. He’s the one who knows her, so he’s the best guy to just float information past her and see how she responds. Informal setting, with a friend? She might tell him a hundred things she’d never tell you.”

“You’re right, of course.”

“ _You’re_ the one who’s supposed to have learnt this stuff in journalism school,” she said raising an eyebrow.

“This is _not_ how they teach it in journalism school.” I laughed a little and shook my head. “Okay, I gotta get back to cleaning this audio. I’ll talk to you later.”

“See ya.”

/

The meeting we set up to ‘review Geoff’s investigation’, as Alex called it, surprisingly involved all four of us; Geoff, Alex, myself and, most surprisingly, MK. We all crowded around a table in Alex’s favourite restaurant, Lucy’s, and waited for Geoff to start talking.

“So at first when I ask her about work, she’s vague. It’s going well, people are nice, whatever. But then I mention the podcast, and it gets interesting.” Geoff tapped his nail against the side of his glass; I had the feeling he was unaware he was doing it. A nervous tic, maybe. “Alice says people at work talk about the podcast, that the boss has something to do with it, the guy who runs it came to the lab – and I’m like, no way, TeslaNova?” Geoff grinned. “She makes this face like she knows she’s been caught. So I tell her yeah, Nic worked there for a while, up at Pacifica Station. And she’s like, no way, I work there too.” Geoff sat back in his seat. “Link confirmed. Does that make me an official source now?”

“You don’t get a paycheck for it,” Alex said with a grin.

“Aww. Well, I mentioned that you’d like to talk to her some time. She didn’t seem that opposed to the idea.”

“Brilliant.” I grinned. “I guess I’ll take her number.”

/

Alice agreed to meet me in a bar in uptown Seattle on Thursday. “I have to say, this wasn’t what I expected when I met up with Geoff,” she said.

“My dad used to say life always leads us to places we never expected to be,” I said, taking a sip of my beer.

“So you’re the one with the podcast.” Alice leant back in her seat and surveyed me carefully. “From the way Ellis talks about you, you’d think you were the key to the whole operation.”

That, at least, was surprising. “He isn’t exactly forthcoming with me.”

“He isn’t _forthcoming_ with anyone,” Alice said with a small smile. “Ellis likes to keep an air of secery about him at all times. But he knows more than anyone about what’s going on with the Breach.” She looked me over again, considering. “I hear that’s what you’re interested in, too.”

“It is. That’s what I keep trying to get him to talk about, but, well.” I shrugged. “I guess you know how he is.”

“I do.” She sighed and tapped one finger rapidly against the table. I noticed she hadn’t touched her drink. “I hope you know I can’t talk to you without breaking my contract.”

“I’d expected that.” I looked at her curiously. “I did wonder why, that being the case, you agreed to meet with me.”

Alice hesitated. “There might be…I mean, sometimes I get the feeling I need a backup option. It’s just that sometimes I wonder if we’re doing the right thing. And I thought, instead of rebuffing your offer, I should just come and talk, just in case I needed someone in the event that everything went pear-shaped.” She smiled a little. “In case I want to, you know.”

“Whislte blow?” I suggested.

“I think that’s the right term,” Alice said.

I nodded. “I can do that, Alice, if that’s what you want.”

“Honestly, I would talk about it if I could.” She laughed, looking down, her expression slightly embarrassed. “I actually listened to the podcast. Some of the stuff you turned up even _I_ didn’t know.”

“As long as I can keep it going, I’m going to keep investigating, so…” I shrugged. “If you ever need a platform for your information, I’ll be there. If I can.”

“And you won’t put anything about this into the podcast?”

“Not if you don’t want me to.”

Alice shook her head. “Even talking to you would breach my contract.”

“I understand.” I smiled at her. “Take my card, and call me when you – or, _if_ you want to – talk.”

“Thank you.” She took the small piece of card I offered and smiled politely.

Later, once we’d said our goodbyes and I was outside, waiting for a taxi, I called Geoff. “Looks like your tip was a good one,” I told him.

“She’s willing to talk?”

“Not exactly. She’s willing to _think_ about talking, which is a start at least.”

I could hear Geoff’s smile down the phone. “So it helped?”

“It helped,” I said, smiling myself. “I felt like she _wanted_ to talk, but she was held back by her contract. People like that are likely to decide to talk, if the right things happen.”

“Great.” Geoff laughed. “I guess I can work on her, if you want.”

“Might help, might not. Keep it casual for now.”

“Will do.” Geoff paused for a moment before he asked, “Everything else is good?”

I looked up at the night’s sky; drowned out by the light of the city, only a few stars shone. Those few sparkled out clearly, though, and made me feel, just for a moment, like there was hope. Like I was chasing something real, something tangible.

“Everything’s good,” I said, breathing a long breath out into the cold night air.

 


End file.
